Staff and patients raised a cup to mark the start of building work on The Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, as part of the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning. The annual Macmillan Cancer Support charity event this year coincided with construction getting underway on the new multi-million pound cancer centre at the hospital, which is being funded by local philanthropist Sir Robert Ogden, Macmillan and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The widow of a “true gentleman” who stayed at her husband’s bedside for four nights as he succumbed to leukaemia has thanked specialist palliative care nurses who made his final days so comfortable – as well as looking after her too. Carole Stiff, 78, said doctors, nurses and the “sweet” ward clerk on Ward 15 were “more like family than complete strangers,” supporting and comforting her at the same time as looking after her beloved Harry.